President Donald Trump recently made the comment that he would like to see teachers armed in the classrooms, following the most recent school shooting in Florida.

Greene County Elementary Principal Scott Johnson says it’s a sad day when there’s conversations about arming teachers. He gives his reaction to President Trump’s remarks.

“That would put a great burden on teachers and responsibility that I don’t think teachers are prepared for or even trained for. Our law enforcement officers, they go to a long, drawn out process of school and you know when they’re involved in a shooting how much it affects them. I couldn’t imagine what it would do to a teacher that has a few days of training on how to do that. So I’m not in complete agreement with that.”

Middle School Principal Shawn Zanders says it’s a complicated issue, especially everytime something like a school shooting happens.

“But I do think we’re at a point now where all options need to be on the table until we can figure out how to stop this madness spoke to speak, using school kids as live targets.”

District 47 State Representative Chip Baltimore says there’s already legislation in place that allows individual school districts to ability to designate teachers to carry weapons onto school grounds.

“If you’ve got highly trained, well trained individuals who are teaching or employed by the school, that the school district wishes to allow them to carry their weapons into school or on the school grounds in case a need arises, I think that’s probably appropriate. Again I think the substantive to that is they’ve got to be appropriately trained.”

Greene County Schools Superintendent Tim Christensen says the district’s policy is that no teacher or staff member is allowed to bring weapons on school grounds. He believes teachers should not be armed. Christensen points out that teaching is a demanding profession that requires their full attention and if the decision is made to arm them, then that’s also a full time job.